How I book steamy couples sessions. 🔥

First off lets just take a moment to clap for these two works of art that are my clients lol.

Now. The way I get my clients comfortable enough to book steamy sessions. Thats what I get asked a lot so I figured, why not do a blog on it?

Every photographer out there will tell you “show what you want to book” ok, I want to book steamy couples sessions, how do I book that if I can’t show that to people???

Well, run a model call. Do it for the specific thing you need so the clients know exactly what they are getting into. If you do it for a simple couples shoot and then get there and say “ok lets get naked” they are going to probably tell you no lol. So you need to set expectations first. “I need a couple that is willing to get a little steamy, with a little bit of clothing removed but no full nudity” Then from there you do their session exactly how you want it. It’s a model call so there is less pressure on you to be perfect. You can get the angles you need rather than worry about delivering a gallery to the paying client. You still want to do your best work because it is a client and its something you are putting out into the world with your name on it, but because you aren’t worried about the clients expectations of a full gallery that they can show off, you can focus on angles and poses YOU as the artist want to show off. From there do the first few poses as basic ones, just so you have time to feel the couple out, get a little more comfortable with them, chat a bit. I like to say “ok lets do the basic standard pose of you looking at me, it’s what grandma and grandpa would like to see before we get into the fun stuff.” That always gets a laugh, laughter and humor tend to make people more comfortable. During the session you need to take charge, you need to tell them how to move, what to do, where to put their hands (biggest question asked lol) What face to make, where to have their eyes looking. Without specific instructions you leave people feeling a bit venerable and that can make them feel awkward. Run it and they will feel much more comfortable. Don’t leave time for pauses, those get weird. Keep the session moving and be efficient in how you shoot.

After that I just run with it. As an introvert with a lot of anxiety I have to plan the way my shoots will go., I have a mental check list of each pose I am going to do so I don’t hit a wall so to speak, mentally and have a brain fart and cause an award situation.

Keep it moving, know what poses you are going to do, and get the shot.

It will make the client more comfortable, it will make you happy knowing you ran that session like a freaking boss, and it will end up giving you gorgeous images.

Once you have this gallery you can then sprinkle them into your social media, your prospective clients will see it and think “hey I want a session like that!” and then the inquiries for the type of session you want to book will roll in.

So many say, don’t give your work away for free. Which I honestly agree with. However, you need to do model calls and things like that for creative sessions to be able to show off what you can do to perspective clients. You can’t expect people to see your creativity, if you don’t put that out in your portfolio.

Just my two cents.

~Ashley